Hades II expands upon the rogue-like formula that made them so great and adds more content, characters, builds and amazing voice acting.

• In addition to going through the Underworld as intended, you can also travel to the surface, adding additional areas to the game! This makes the game more replayable and provides variety and choice, with both areas having their own caveats, enemies and bosses
  
• Sprinting is a new mechanic, allowing you to sprint around the map. I've seen people talk about how clunky it can be and it can feel that way once you get a sprinting boon or two on it since you can collide on walls, but I never found it to be a problem. Although slows the game down a bit due to how some enemies function, this allows for more movement and encourages to player to do both dash and sprint, depending on the situation. The bigger maps help with this too
  
• Arcana cards allow the game's main character, Melinoe, to gain passive bonuses, such as more health, faster sprint speed and more. These can also be upgraded for better effectiveness and is one of the new features for the series, which adds depth and build variety. Can't wait to see how Supergiant expand upon this system if something does change
  
• Material gathering is now a thing! In each of the game's areas, there's materials that can be acquired by either hand or gathering tool, which you'll unlock as you progress and are spent on buying upgrades or "incantations", the meta progression of the game. Very cool feature and encourages exploration, a good way to make use of the maps as well
  
• Gameplay loop is as good as it gets, with new weapons and a new magic system that procs your basic moves to have a more powerful effect called Omega attacks, essentially doubling the amount of moves you had from the first game
  
• Easy to learn, hard to master
  
• Amazing voice acting across the board, I can't help but have a smirk or a laugh every time I hear Chronos because his character is just so good. Well done to everyone who helped bring the characters to life
  
• Relationship system is back with new keepsakes and events, such as bathing and having a drink at the tavern
  
• Insanely detailed - During the sirens fight, I thought that there would only be one song that they sing, but as you play more, they practiced whilst you go back to the underworld over and over until they're ready to sing it to you in which case they do. Scylla and the Sirens EP when? (P.S Coral Crown is THE best Hades song period.)
  
• Great OST
  
• Great story, majority of the game seems to be fleshed out in terms of characters and dialogue, with the true ending coming at a later date. Lots to unpack, huge kudos to Supergiant for giving us the game like this
  
• Surprising end game system which I did not expect - same as Heat from the first game but it's instead called Fear and helps with upgrading weapon aspects. Works good
  
• God Mode option is nice for those who are struggling with the game and makes it a bit easier

• Almost all of the weapons in this game feel incredibly weak or lackluster. I'm not sure if it's because of the balancing of the weapons or the tankiness of enemies which ramps up when you hit the 3rd area in the Underworld, but man at times it feels like it can take ages to bring enemies down, especially armor. The only weapon I haven't had a problem with is the Axe which has so much power without hammer upgrades and low magic efficiency that with some magic regen, you can keep using your omega attacks and spin that block. That being said, I've heard good things about the 2 ranged weapons but haven't had any luck getting them to work (subject to change since I haven't unlocked and upgraded everything yet)
  
• Conditional boons are dumb and will be ignored by majority of players - these are boons which require you to have a specific condition for it to work, such as Aphrodite's high health regen (requiring a minimum amount of health before regenerating which is very high, like 80%) and Apollo's perfect no-hit boon, allowing you to deal more damage before getting hit. I never bother to pick these because I'd rather pick something that's gonna help in the long term, like a supporting or a DPS boon. These conditions either need to be reduced or reworked in some way. I just don't see a lot of people taking these unless you're an absolute god
  
• Only having one gathering tool at a time severely increases the grind and makes gathering materials a longer process. I think all gathering tools should be given to you as soon as you acquire them, that way you can get a bit of everything in each run. Less grind = more fun and easier access to incantations
  
• Boons feel far and few in-between - I feel like the boon choices are a bit lower than the first game, being similar to each other and I usually end up picking the same ones, but that's just because their uses are too good. Hammer upgrades on another note also feel weak, like the ones where you can attack but you can't use your omega attack. eg. The axe has a similar upgrade like this and gives you attack speed, but that's it. There should be some sort of associated power increase to make this and other ones like it worth picking up.
  
• I've only experienced one game breaking bug which has resulted in me not being able to get familiars. I've spotted the cat multiple times and tried fighting Hecate to get her to give me the incantation but I haven't been able to get it. Will update if I get a solution. Outside of this, crystal clear performance and a few minor bugs (is early access so understandable)

Supergiant Games have essentially given us the full game and game hasn't even been released. They really meant it when they said that this build has more content than the base Hades game and I'm still discovering new things as of 31 hours. There's more content on the way and plenty of feedback to give, but I have no doubt that Supergiant will balance and update this game the way we and them want it to be. They've done it once, they can do it again. Can't wait to see more.

Death to Chronos.